Statistical Mechanic wrote:Someone needs to learn how commas work in English.

There were none, please try and be more coherent instead of your normal babbling.

Idiot, meet commas:

In this spirit, the definition should enable us to compare and differentiate/include actions, in our context, like the “Holocaust,” the Nazis’ actions against the Roma, Nazi actions in Poland, Dresden and Hamburg, the Vertreibungen, pogroms and other ethnic massacres in the “shatter zone” - but also such mass atrocities as the decimation of American Indians, Turkey’s operations against the Armenians, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holodomor, the case of the Palestinians, the former Yugoslavia in the ‘90s. Rohingya, mass killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, ISIL depredations against Christians, “white genocide,” and other cases in which genocide has been alleged.

Maybe at Rodoh lying and even doctoring people’s posts are acceptable; here you’ve just further exposed your emptiness, dishonesty, and lack of arguments.

Which raises an interesting question, maybe, depending. This thread is focused on alternative definitions of genocide. Does VFX have any thoughts on what constitutes genocide and what kinds of acts qualify?

Above is a partial list, in series form, of the kinds of actions which have been described by some as genocides and which any useful definition of genocide must enable us to understand:

the "Holocaust"
the Nazis’ actions against the Roma
Nazi actions in Poland
Dresden and Hamburg
the Vertreibungen
pogroms and other ethnic massacres in the “shatter zone”
the decimation of American Indians
Turkey’s operations against the Armenians
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
the Holodomor
the case of the Palestinians
the former Yugoslavia in the ‘90s
Rohingya
mass killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
ISIL depredations against Christians
"white genocide"

The question isn't to give a yes/no on the above actions but to keep in mind that we're after a definition of genocide that can help us compare and differentiate various historical events and actions.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Someone needs to learn how commas work in English.

There were none, please try and be more coherent instead of your normal babbling.

Idiot, meet commas:

In this spirit, the definition should enable us to compare and differentiate/include actions, in our context, like the “Holocaust,” the Nazis’ actions against the Roma, Nazi actions in Poland, Dresden and Hamburg, the Vertreibungen, pogroms and other ethnic massacres in the “shatter zone” - but also such mass atrocities as the decimation of American Indians, Turkey’s operations against the Armenians, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holodomor, the case of the Palestinians, the former Yugoslavia in the ‘90s. Rohingya, mass killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, ISIL depredations against Christians, “white genocide,” and other cases in which genocide has been alleged.

Maybe at Rodoh lying and even doctoring people’s posts are acceptable; here you’ve just further exposed your emptiness, dishonesty, and lack of arguments.

Which raises an interesting question, maybe, depending. This thread is focused on alternative definitions of genocide. Does VFX have any thoughts on what constitutes genocide and what kinds of acts qualify?

Above is a partial list, in series form, of the kinds of actions which have been described by some as genocides and which any useful definition of genocide must enable us to understand:

the "Holocaust"
the Nazis’ actions against the Roma
Nazi actions in Poland
Dresden and Hamburg
the Vertreibungen
pogroms and other ethnic massacres in the “shatter zone”
the decimation of American Indians
Turkey’s operations against the Armenians
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
the Holodomor
the case of the Palestinians
the former Yugoslavia in the ‘90s
Rohingya
mass killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
ISIL depredations against Christians
"white genocide"

The question isn't to give a yes/no on the above actions but to keep in mind that we're after a definition of genocide that can help us compare and differentiate various historical events and actions.

The Vietnam war must surely qualify. You've being biased by not including more of America's huge crimes against humanity, when you include Dresden and Hamburg as comparisons.

Could America's continuous war against communism (political) be considered a genocide? Even though the victims haven't always been communists, the intent was always to wipe communism from the face of the earth.

For a comparison, how about Ahmadinejad's statement of pushing the apartheid regime into the sea. Would that qualify as an attempt at genocide?

I'm hearing you as being much more politically motivated than being concerned about genocides and attempts at genocide.

"Attempts" at genocide being the important factor here. Actual successful attempts at genocide being much more elusive.

No reply to what I asked. VFX too busy firing off lame replies hither and yon, montgomery grinding his own political ax instead - and, curiously, trying to list every test case that interests him instead of discussing how to define genocide.

However, I suspect you are asking what counts as a genocide. I obviously go with the legal definition within article II of the Genocide Convention.

The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention.
Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another groupUnited Nations Genocide

To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators

However, I suspect you are asking what counts as a genocide. I obviously go with the legal definition within article II of the Genocide Convention.

The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention.
Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another groupUnited Nations Genocide

To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators

Perhaps, since this thread began with a challenge to the definition you give, you should read the thread.

I raised questions earlier in the thread about how to understand intent, whether genocidal actions must be systematic, sustained, and aimed at destruction of the group as a whole, the role of states, the part played by mass murder, and the “in whole or in part” aspect. I criticized the UN definition as overly broad and inclusive. And I added thoughts from a number of scholars, including Levine and Mann; this exercise had me beginning to think of a spectrum or continuum of extermination, destruction, and cleansing actions.

Simply repeating what is being challenged, and what we began the thread with, is hardly a way to deal with the challenge. You've contributed nothing.

And, no, I was not "asking what counts as a genocide"; I was, as I wrote, "after a definition of genocide that can help us compare and differentiate various historical events and actions."

I raised problems with it. Are you unable to deal with the problems in that definition? This thread is about the problems in the UN definition. Why are you bothering to post in a discussion you don't even want to have?

The United States will threaten Monday to punish individuals that cooperate with the International Criminal Court in a potential investigation of U.S. wartime actions in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with the decision.

So under the America First doctrine, the US will bully those who complain to the ICC about, or cooperate with ICC investigations of, potential war crimes committed by Americans in Afghanistan. This is as close to a claim of immunity for war crimes as a government can get - and in the US case it is based on US power, not legitimacy of the ICC, justice, or law.

However, I suspect you are asking what counts as a genocide. I obviously go with the legal definition within article II of the Genocide Convention.

The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention.
Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another groupUnited Nations Genocide

To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators

Perhaps, since this thread began with a challenge to the definition you give, you should read the thread.

I raised questions earlier in the thread about how to understand intent, whether genocidal actions must be systematic, sustained, and aimed at destruction of the group as a whole, the role of states, the part played by mass murder, and the “in whole or in part” aspect. I criticized the UN definition as overly broad and inclusive. And I added thoughts from a number of scholars, including Levine and Mann; this exercise had me beginning to think of a spectrum or continuum of extermination, destruction, and cleansing actions.

Simply repeating what is being challenged, and what we began the thread with, is hardly a way to deal with the challenge. You've contributed nothing.

And, no, I was not "asking what counts as a genocide"; I was, as I wrote, "after a definition of genocide that can help us compare and differentiate various historical events and actions."

By the way, as should be obvious, the Third Reich's destruction of European Jews is, under the definition above, a genocide - it involved the intentional destruction of a group (European Jews) by means of murder, bodily harm, inflicting of conditions meant to cause the physical destruction of a group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. It was intended to destroy the group in while or in part. After all Raphael Lemkin developed his early definition of genocide in a book called Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:
By the way, as should be obvious, the Third Reich's destruction of European Jews is, under the definition above, a genocide - it involved the intentional destruction of a group (European Jews) by means of murder, bodily harm, inflicting of conditions meant to cause the physical destruction of a group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. It was intended to destroy the group in while or in part. After all Raphael Lemkin developed his early definition of genocide in a book called Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

So at a whim you think you can change the public perception of the holocaust from mass gassing, Einsatzgruppen to mere inconvenience of deportation so that people elsewhere can fulfill those basic human needs. The fact is that Jews, then and now were unwanted guests who were kicked out. They made their own beds so at the end of the day had to lie in it, even if it was a lice and flea infested place in a lager.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:
By the way, as should be obvious, the Third Reich's destruction of European Jews is, under the definition above, a genocide - it involved the intentional destruction of a group (European Jews) by means of murder, bodily harm, inflicting of conditions meant to cause the physical destruction of a group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. It was intended to destroy the group in while or in part. After all Raphael Lemkin developed his early definition of genocide in a book called Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

So at a whim you think you can change the public perception of the holocaust from mass gassing, Einsatzgruppen to mere inconvenience of deportation

What on earth are you talking about? I've posted elsewhere, in threads you've been active in, about the death tolls, and nothing I wrote here contradicts those posts. In fact, here I wrote that the German Jewish policy eventually "involved the intentional destruction of a group (European Jews) by means of murder, bodily harm, inflicting of conditions meant to cause the physical destruction of a group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. It was intended to destroy the group ..."

How do you manage to derive from that "at a whim you think you can change the public perception of the holocaust from mass gassing, Einsatzgruppen to mere inconvenience of deportation"? Indeed, Jews were deported in a variety of contexts - the largest of these being to camps or other sites where they were murdered.

I am beginning to think that the Hauptschule you attend doesn't teach reading comprehension.

VFX wrote:The fact is that Jews, then and now were unwanted guests who were kicked out. They made their own beds so at the end of the day had to lie in it, even if it was a lice and flea infested place in a lager.

In places from which Jews were expelled (in their millions to their deaths) during WWII Jews had lived for many 100s of years, undergone emancipation, become citizens, and formed part of the society. Regardless, the intentional destruction of a group, including by mass murder, has nothing to do with fevered and paranoid perceptions you or others harbor: if Jews were "guests," as you believe, their destruction as a group is still genocide.

What does this mean, referring to the European Jews, who are targeted by Germany's genocidal action - "They made their own beds" - pray tell. I mean, I do like it when you guys finally come out and justify and cheerlead the genocide, which is what a lot of you want in any event. You sound like you've been reading too much been-there and Scott Smith, frankly, you certainly have learned dishonest tactics from people like them.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:
By the way, as should be obvious, the Third Reich's destruction of European Jews is, under the definition above, a genocide - it involved the intentional destruction of a group (European Jews) by means of murder, bodily harm, inflicting of conditions meant to cause the physical destruction of a group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. It was intended to destroy the group in while or in part. After all Raphael Lemkin developed his early definition of genocide in a book called Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

So at a whim you think you can change the public perception of the holocaust from mass gassing, Einsatzgruppen to mere inconvenience of deportation so that people elsewhere can fulfill those basic human needs. The fact is that Jews, then and now were unwanted guests who were kicked out. They made their own beds so at the end of the day had to lie in it, even if it was a lice and flea infested place in a lager.

VFX: where do you get "deportation" from that? AFAIK....there wasn't even any deportation except to the nearest extermination camps? Are you remembering some other conversation?

I was going to move on to the "guest" aspect of your post but checking for the quote, I see Stat Mech has covered all points better than I could. so, I'll just second, and leave.

Real Name: bobbo the existential pragmatic evangelical anti-theist and Class Warrior.
Asking: What is the most good for the most people?
Sample Issue: Should the Feds provide all babies with free diapers?

Typical denier move. Next up: The AR death factories were transit camps. (Don't believe it? Hey, they took all those hospital and other records with them, that's why so much can't be found. Including the transited guests and their descendants.)

Dovid Katz, who writes on the situation in Lithuania and the 2008 Prague Declaration and who began the Defending History website, has described Holocaust obfuscation and the concept of "double genocide" as crucial elements of Eastern European Holocaust revisionism and weapons of the nationalist right in the Baltic countries and other places (Katz highlights Ukraine). A crucial aspect of Katz's argument is that Holocaust obfuscation redefines genocide to minimize and obfuscate the Holocaust. As an indication of the present danger in this thinking, Katz cites (and Defending History has detailed cases of this) how in the Baltic states "criminaliz[e] criticism of Nazi collaborators" so long as they were also anti-communists and viewed as national heroes in resisting Soviet predations (e.g., the LAF in Lithuania, which is memorialized as a heroic nationalist group, despite its involvement in mass executions of Jews in 1941).

Pertinent to this thread, and the OP, Katz writes, "truth to tell, the standard UN definition ... itself opened potential floodgates for the future" with its broad scope and checklist approach identifying "any of the following acts" as genocide. Katz views the problematic definition as arising from Lemkin's 1943-1944 work in which, after defining genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group," he becomes "increasingly casual" in how he describes genocide.

To bring us closer to the present, Katz quotes from a 1992 Lithuanian law which codifies Soviet genocide on the basis of torture and deportation of Lithuanians and of occupation and annexation of the country. Surveying similar legislation in Latvia and Estonia, Katz concludes that in these countries genocide is equated to harsh and violent actions against political groups, groups sharing common beliefs, or a social class. For example, Estonia includes as actions defined as genocide depriving people of their political rights or civil liberties. One thrust of the equation of such actions with genocide is that acts of political and cultural destruction, e.g., russification, without "physical and biological" destruction, are defined as genocide. And in this way, "odious crimes" (Katz's phrase) of the Soviets against segments of the populations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are equated to and mixed with - creating a "false symmetry" (Weiss-Wendt) - the Nazi attempt to destroy the Jewish communities and people in those countries. A second thrust is an "inversion" of roles, in which "patriotic" perpetrators of the Jewish genocide are elevated to the status of national heroes criticism of whom is criminalized.

Katz quotes a Lithuanian writer Leonidas Donskis on "the inflation of genocide" in which Donskis warns against the "devaluation" of the concept through inclusion of other, heinous actions and even atrocities that are not part of

the annihilation en bloc of a people or of a race irrespective of class divisions, dominant ideology and social and cultural differences. . . . Genocide is annihilation without pre-selection. . . .You are guilty at birth, and this fatal error of having been born - this original sin - can be corrected only by your extermination.

Again, to realize that these issues are not theoretical, we have only to think about the cases Katz discusses:

- noted scholar Yitzhak Arad, criminally investigated for participation (implied) in the genocide of the Lithuanian people for his actions as a partisan resisting the Nazis and their collaborators
- Rachel Margolis (who had rediscovered and published Sakowicz's Ponary diary and, full disclosure, helped me with research issues into the Holocaust in Lithuania) and Fania Yocheles Bransovsky, both of The Green House in Vilnius, criminally investigated for their roles as partisans
- Joseph Melamed (survivor of Kaunas ghetto), criminally investigated for defamation of Lithuanian "patriotic" supposedly by publishing lists of potential Holocaust perpetrators
- Evaldas Balčiūnas, a writer who appealed to Lithuania to "stop glorifying Holocaust murderers, perpetrators, and collaborators," subject to a series of harassing legal charges

Interestingly, Katz is highly critical of Israel, whose foreign policy calculations downplay criticism of Holocaust obfuscation in return for, in his opinion, reliable pro-Israel votes in the EU, UN, etc from obfuscating states. Israel failed to support three of its citizens, Arad, Margolis, and Melamed, when they came under attack in Lithuania for their activities, both wartime and current.

source: Dovid Katz, "The Baltic Movement to Obfuscate the Holocaust," in Kay & Sahel, Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe, pp 219-261; more full disclosure - Katz also helped me with research questions; he's written widely on Holocaust obfuscation and double genocide - I highly recommend the Defending History website (http://defendinghistory.com/) for materials on issues raised above as well as Litvak history

If I knew this about Lemkin I’d forgotten it: in 1933 Lemkin participated in the Fifth International Conference for the Unification of Penal Law in Madrid. He sought to gain recognition of two international crimes, in his proposal:

- barbarity: “oppressive and destructive actions directed against individuals as members of a national, religious, or racial group”
- vandalism: “the destruction of work of art and culture”

According to Finder & Prusin Lemkin would later “join the proposed crimes of ‘barbarity’ and ‘vandalism’ under the heading of ‘genocide’” in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe in 1944.